Never Far Away

by Michael Koryta

  Too many. That was for sure.

  “Yeah, it’s smoke,” Randall said, and Matt looked numbly out the window in the direction Randall was staring. He didn’t see anything. Just the woods and the river.

  “That where they’re waiting for you?” Bleak asked, and the pilot shook his head.

  “No. That’s northeast of the cabin.”

  “How far?”

  “A mile, maybe. Not far.”

  “The cabin is at my ten o’clock?”

  “Yes. Upper Martin. The smoke is coming from Lower Martin, or close to it.”

  “But they shouldn’t be there.”

  “No.”

  Silence except for the whine of the propeller.

  “Check the smoke out, Ed,” Randall said. “Check it out, then circle back to the pond. Stay high enough that she won’t see you on first pass. That she can’t be sure it’s you, at least.”

  The pilot banked to the right but didn’t descend. Matt leaned closer to the window, curious despite himself, frustrated that he still hadn’t seen what they all had. Everything was green or blue.

  There it was. A white wisp that rose against the blue sky, thin but undeniable. He couldn’t believe how easily the man named Bleak had picked it out.

  “Campfire,” the pilot said. His voice was hoarse. “Just a campfire.”

  “Early for lunch, late for breakfast,” Bleak said.

  “People camp on a river and they light fires. I don’t care what time it is.”

  “Ed, I’d appreciate you watching your tone when you speak to my man Bleak,” Randall said, and he tapped the pilot’s skull with the gun.

  The pilot didn’t answer. He was a tall, strong-looking man wearing a frayed baseball cap pulled low, the curved bill shading his stubbled face. The muscles in his forearms stood out in cords as he gripped the steering wheel—not a wheel, it was a yoke, Matt remembered—and Matt thought that ordinarily this pilot named Ed was exactly the type of stranger he would want to come across when he was in trouble. He looked confident and capable, the kind of man who could fix a problem. Matt didn’t think Ed could fix the problems in this plane, though.

  He was pretty sure nobody could do that.

  “If it’s people camping,” Bleak said, “we should be able to see a campsite. Tent, kayaks, whatever. Take us down, Ed.”

  The pilot angled the nose of the plane down. Matt got a clear glimpse of the river below. They were pointed at a bend in the river where the blue water turned white.

  The pilot went lower still and then leveled out and they passed over the smoke.

  “Nobody by the fire,” Bleak said. “Burning on the gravel bank on the right, untended. It’s a campfire. No equipment in sight.”

  Matt realized that Bleak was holding a small pair of black binoculars to his eyes. When had he gotten those? When had he even moved? It was as if they’d just appeared in front of his face, like a card trick.

  Without the binoculars, Matt couldn’t see anything of the fire except for the single plume of smoke, which rose almost like a signal, the kind people made when they intended to send a message. If Leah Trenton had brought the family here to hide, as Ed had told Bleak, then why would they light a fire?

  Maybe it was a fake. Maybe it was—

  “Two kids,” Bleak said.

  “Where?” Randall asked, craning his neck. Even Ed leaned forward a little, searching.

  “Sandbar in the middle of the river, maybe fifteen yards off the bank. No kayaks.”

  “Canoe,” Ed said softly.

  “What’s that?”

  “They had a canoe.”

  “They don’t now.” Bleak was still looking through the binoculars, and Matt saw Ed’s eyes flick over. The gun rested in Bleak’s lap. If Ed reached for it now, he might get it, but then Randall would shoot him. Matt hoped Ed was smart enough to see that.

  “Where is she?” Randall asked. She being Leah Trenton, Matt figured. She being the one they’d come to kill.

  “Not present,” Bleak answered, monotone.

  “Something’s fucked. They’re alone on the river a mile from the pond and a fire is burning and there’s no boat?”

  “There’s a boat,” Bleak said, still unfazed. “But it’s not the canoe. An inflatable with an outboard, good equipment. A Zodiac or close to it. Deployment craft.” He lowered the binoculars, looked over at Ed, and said, “How’d they get that boat, Ed? Maybe you forgot a few things?”

  “I don’t know,” Ed said. He sounded weary. “I really don’t. Look closer; they had a canoe. It’s a yellow Wenonah. Sixteen feet. You can’t miss it, not on that river.”

  Bleak said, “I don’t overlook yellow canoes, Ed. I assure you of that.”

  After a long silence, Ed said, “I lied. I’m sorry.”

  Matt tensed, expecting a punch at best, a gunshot at worst. They wouldn’t tolerate a lie from him.

  No one struck, though. Everything remained still in the cockpit.

  They can’t fly the plane, Matt remembered. He’s lucky he admitted to lying up here, because they can’t hurt him too bad. But when we’re back on the ground…I think they’ll kill him then.

  “You’re sorry,” Randall said. “Well. In that case.”

  “You flew the boat up here?” Bleak asked.

  Ed seemed to hesitate again, then shook his head. “It’s stored in the cabin. With the motor. I brought the gas up, that’s all.”

  “And you neglected to mention this until now.”

  “They were in the canoe when I left,” he said. “I forgot.”

  “A minute ago you said you lied. Now you forgot?”

  “I lied,” Ed acknowledged softly. “I don’t want you to hurt them.”

  “Your lies endanger everyone. We came only for her. We do not give a damn about those kids. If we did, they’d have been dead long ago. We don’t give a damn about the kid in back or even your lying ass. We came for her. Now do the right thing, Eddie. Make the right choice for the most humans. Isn’t that what you want to do?”

  Ed was silent.

  “I got no need to kill other folks, got no desire to kill other folks, but do you think I have a qualm about it?” Bleak said.

  Ed didn’t speak.

  “Look at me,” Bleak said.

  Ed turned to face him.

  “Do you think I have any qualms about leaving five bodies in that river?” Bleak asked.

  “No.” A whisper so faint it was barely audible.

  “Correct. But there’s a tactical advantage to leaving you alive. There will be less heat behind me if I limit it to her than if I kill a bunch of kids. Think I don’t realize that?”

  “Fuckin’-A, we realize that,” Randall contributed from the back. Matt felt like he just didn’t want to be forgotten.

  “That’s my tactical position,” Bleak continued. “Get the woman, leave the kids alive. I don’t mind leaving you alive with them, Ed. Not yet. But another lie?” He made a soft, sad sound with his mouth. “Another lie, and I’m gonna begin to feel like there’re scores to settle between us. Copy that, Captain?”

  “Yes,” Ed whispered.

  Bleak put the binoculars back to his eyes. Stared for a time in silence. Said, “What’s she doing, Ed? She hiding?”

  “No. I mean—I don’t know. But she wouldn’t have left them.”

  “How’d they get in the water?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Randall pushed forward, the gun between him and Matt now, its oily black body looking lethal as a snake. “Let me have a look.”

  Bleak passed the binoculars back. “Pan west from the smoke. The fire is on a gravel bank, but they’re out on a sandbar or something in midriver. It’s just the two of them.”

  “Got it. So where’s Mom?” Randall said, eyes to the binoculars. “I don’t like this. Feels off.”

  “I know it.”

  “She’s not losing the kids. So—”

  “I bet they ran away,” Matt said. His words surprised even him
self. He hadn’t intended to speak; the idea had come to him with such clarity that he voiced it.

  Randall lowered the binoculars and looked at Matt. Up close, you could see the spiderwebs of old scars on his cheek and forehead. His nose was crooked, too, like it had been broken once. Or many times. His mismatched eyes were the meanest things Matt had ever seen.

  “What’s that, boss? They ran away?”

  Matt wished he hadn’t said anything now, but he nodded. “Maybe. They knew—Hailey knew—that she was…that she wasn’t right. Her aunt, I mean. That something was wrong with her. Hailey wanted to get away from her.”

  Ed said, “I think he’s right,” in a soft voice.

  “Consensus from the hostages,” Randall said. “Interesting. How could they have run away? Thought there was a big rescue plan. Thought Nina was on top of her game today.”

  Ed glanced back at Matt. Matt was grateful for the brief gaze, the glimmer of compassion.

  “Because of what he just told you. He’s right about that. I could feel it coming off the kids like heat waves last night. They were scared, and they didn’t want any part of that cabin. This morning was different. Hailey especially. She was warmer, friendlier. Because…because she wanted to get on the water.”

  “To run away,” Matt said, speaking despite himself.

  “To run away,” Ed echoed. “Yeah.”

  Bleak said, “What will Nina do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  Ed thought about it. “She can’t outpace them on foot. So she’d wait for me to come back. She’d hate it, but that’s what she’d do, because it’s the smart thing. Once I’m back, finding them is easier. From the air, we could find them.” He paused, then added, “We just did.”

  “Yes,” Bleak said. “We just did, didn’t we?”

  Bleak reached back and said, “Give me those,” to Randall. Randall passed the binoculars forward. Bleak lifted them, scanned the river, and said, “There’s a little bit of white-water action just upriver from them. Enough to cause a kid trouble. Enough to dump the boat if they didn’t know how to use it.”

  “Or scare them into going to shore.”

  “Right. But the fire…”

  “Yep. You think those kids know how to start a fire?”

  “Wondering.” He looked away from the binoculars, faced the pilot, and said, “If you forgot to mention that there is another friend on the ground…”

  “It was just the three of them,” Ed said in a resigned whisper. “It was just them. And the dog. That’s the truth.”

  “They’re waving now,” Bleak said. “They have their jackets off and they’re waving them around at us. Little shits are signaling us for help.”

  Randall laughed. The sound made Matt squeeze his eyes shut. It was a terrible laugh, one that delighted in the prospect of pain.

  “It sure is nice,” he said, “that they recognize the plane.”

  “Isn’t it?” Bleak said. “Stroke of luck for those kids. Cold, wet, alone, and then they look to the sky and what to their wondering eyes did appear but our boy Ed, come to end all their fear.”

  It was the most he’d ever said at one time, and he grew more terrifying with each word. Randall laughed again. Matt kept his eyes shut, even when Bleak whispered instructions to the pilot, and the plane began to descend.

  43

  Leah’s mind was so lost to the run that she was late hearing the plane.

  Her legs had taken on the liquid throb that preceded collapse and her breath was coming in red-lined rasps. She ran, she climbed, she stumbled, but not once did she fall, and then the sound of the white water grew clear and she knew she was closing in on the only place she was likely to find them. If Hailey had shot the gap here and kept going, they’d be well out of reach.

  Then came the second sound.

  At first it seemed to be coming from within her own gasps, a manifestation from the pounding of her heart in her ears. Too late, she recognized it for what it was, and her immediate thought wasn’t Rescue, but Threat.

  She stopped running, crouched beside a wind-downed tree, and watched the sky.

  She wouldn’t be visible even to an intentional searcher. Not here, where the pines crowded and jostled like passengers in an overstuffed subway, not when she was wearing a gray fleece that matched the tree trunks. Tessa’s rust-colored coat might be more eye-catching, but the dog looked more like a fox than a domestic pet even up close, let alone from the air.

  It’s no one coming for you, Leah reasoned as her heart rate decreased and her lungs filled, it’s just someone headed north to fish.

  It was then, as she watched the sky and her overexerted body cooled, that she finally smelled the smoke.

  Faint, but undeniable. The wind was blowing out of the west and yet the smoke didn’t seem to be riding the wind. If the fire was downwind from her and she could still smell it, it could not be far off.

  She was just beginning to consider the possibility that her children had stumbled on strangers along the river when the plane passed overhead and she saw its distinctive red belly.

  Ed.

  She started to rise and wave. Stopped only because she recognized the futility of that; even if he was looking for her, he wouldn’t spot her here. She would have to get out to the river, into open terrain, and even then she’d likely have to signal him somehow.

  As she stood, she finally thought to look at her watch: 10:18.

  He was back early. Very early. And he was north of the pond.

  He knows, she thought with a relief that ran through her like blood. Somehow, he knows.

  But how?

  The canoe. He saw it was gone. He wouldn’t have missed that. He’d have passed over and flown in search of it and—

  The plane’s engine noise changed, and she saw it was descending, the angle steep. Just before the plane vanished from sight, she saw a flashing light on the wings. Navigation lights. She tried to remember if Ed had ever used navigation lights for a remote water landing on a clear day. Why would he?

  She checked her watch again. Looked back up at the now empty sky.

  It was too early for him to return. He had passed over the pond and carried on north, and his navigation lights were on against the crystal-blue day.

  She’d been running at a forty-five-degree angle to the water, targeting a destination as close to the stretch of white water as possible. Now she broke hard right and moved at ninety degrees, pushing uphill through a tangle of underbrush so thick that Tessa vanished from sight. It was harder going but it would take her to the water, and she needed the vantage point.

  The hill was steep, and the footing was atrocious. She fought through it, branches lashing her face, a line of blood along her upper lip, and then the hill crested and she could see the water, granite-colored as the clouds pushed in from the west and the pines threw shadows. There was no shoreline, just a ledge five feet above the surface, with trees crowding the banks. She slung herself down on her belly on the stone, brought the Winchester to her shoulder, and lowered her eye to the Leupold scope.

  Water and woods, green-gold riffles ahead of the rapids, two massive boulders that tilted like old gravestones.

  Nothing else. She was still too far away. The sound of the plane’s engine came in a low thrum that told her it was down now, on the water, possibly taxiing, possibly idling. Either way, it was down, and she had no visibility.

  She rose to her knees and looked at the woods and then at the river. To make any progress along the shoreline would involve more of the same scrambling she’d employed to get here. It would not be fast. Alternatively, there was the water, which would be cold but swift and open. She’d be exposed only as long as she remained in it. If she could catch one of the tilting tombstones of rock ahead, she would have a secure spot with a clear view of the rapids and the gravel bank beyond.

  Tessa whined, as if sensing her plan. The dog that could run for hours did not like the water. She was a hound,
not a retriever.

  “Stay,” Leah said. “Stay, baby. We’re fine. Good job.” Idle chatter, coming too fast, serving only to make the dog more nervous as Leah unfastened her backpack and dropped it, then strapped the Winchester across her back and cinched the strap tight enough to press her breasts hard against her chest. She picked up the backpack again and held it in front of her, a cushion for impact. The rushing water that had at first looked so close seemed far off now.

  “We’re fine,” she said again, and this time it wasn’t for the dog. Tessa whined and nudged Leah’s calf, and though it was a request for attention, Leah took it as the signal she needed.

  She leaped from the bank and into the river.

  The shock of cold water was almost soothing at first. She was on the surface and drifting with the backpack held out in front of her when the cold came, and she channeled the adrenaline to energy and began to kick. The current was strong enough that she didn’t need to do full swimming strokes, just keep her head above the water and let physics do the rest. The weight of the backpack grew exponentially, and her shoulders throbbed from holding it up, but she knew what she was aiming for and she knew the landing would be rough.

  Kick and cushion, that was all she had to do.

  Her thighs felt strong and her calves useless, anchored by the soaked boots. The weight of the rifle across her back deepened the throb in her shoulders and muscle memory cried out for her hands to release the pack and join the rest of the body in swimming, but she willed it away and floated on, head tipped back, nose and mouth clear, sputtering but breathing.

  The water swirled and caught and carried. The tilted tombstone rock loomed ahead, approaching faster now, gathering size. She knew that the water was teasing her, though; it wouldn’t drive her into the rock but sweep her past it, and then she’d be in real trouble.